According to a study conducted by Ropes & Gray, 57% of senior-level executives rate “risk and compliance” as the top two categories they feel the least prepared to address. There are a lot of misconceptions about compliance and risk management. Both help to prevent security threats to the organization’s legal structure and physical assets. And often, when people hear the terms compliance and risk management, they assume the two are the same.

Here’s an obvious statement for you: mobile applications are essential to how we go about our lives. From sharing files with colleagues to managing finances and connecting with family and friends, they seem to be able to do everything we need. But here’s the catch: developers rarely build apps from scratch and security is not typically their top priority. To quickly add features, they often rely on prepackaged code known as software development kits (SDKs).

In enterprise networks, endpoint devices refer to end-user devices such as laptops, servers, desktops, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and mobile devices. Such devices enable users to access the corporate network, and are therefore indispensable for day-to-day operations. Endpoints also, however, expand a company’s attack surface, since each one can be exploited by malicious threat actors to launch cyberattacks via ransomware, phishing emails, social engineering, and so forth.

Everything connected to your network poses a security risk. Every application on every device poses a threat to that device which then increases your security risk profile. Ultimately, organizations need visibility into all users, applications, and devices on their networks. Whether arising from employees using personal devices or downloading applications to corporate devices, shadow IT is becoming a bigger problem for organizations.

A third-party risk assessment is an analysis of the risk introduced to your organization via third-party relationships along the supply chain. Those third parties can include vendors, service providers, software providers and other suppliers. Risks to be considered include security, business continuity, privacy, and reputation harm; as well as the risk that regulatory compliance obligations might force you to stop working with a party until its issues are addressed.

In most companies today, there is a critical divide between the Chief of Information Security (CISO) and their board of directors. Our new book, The Perfect Scorecard: Getting an ‘A’ in Cybersecurity from your Board of Directors , is an attempt to close that gap. The Perfect Scorecard features insights from 17 leading CISOs and executives known for their leadership skills and their ability to communicate across roles and sectors.

A Service Organization Controls (SOC) report provides independent validation over a company’s internal financial reporting controls. They were originally used to validate compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. When the SEC released the “ Commission Statement and Guidance on Public Company Cybersecurity Disclosures ,” SOC reports started to include cybersecurity. Understanding what a SOC Type 2 report is can give insight into why it is important to your organization.

Third-party risk is any risk brought on to an organization by external parties in its ecosystem or supply chain . Such parties may include vendors, suppliers, partners, contractors, or service providers, who have access to internal company or customer data, systems, processes, or other privileged information. While an organization may have strong cybersecurity measures in place and a solid remediation plan, outside parties, such as third-party vendors , may not uphold the same standards.

Businesses face an endless range of security concerns. Internal controls and security procedures help, but not every risk can be managed out of existence. To build a sustainable security program, then, executives need to rely on risk acceptance and security exceptions to keep operations running and to appease stakeholders as best as possible.

Even the most secure IT system can have vulnerabilities that leave it exposed to cyber attacks. Constantly changing network environments, social engineering schemes, and outdated or unpatched software are all threats that call for routine vulnerability testing. Vulnerability testing, also called vulnerability assessment or analysis, is a one-time process designed to identify and classify security vulnerabilities in a network.